Posted on 04/05/2025 10:36:37 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
When 21-year-old Dallas LeBeau vowed to jump over a highway to win a contest and social media clout, his parents felt helpless to stop him. Now they’re left with regret.
The night before he would try to ski jump over a busy three-lane highway in the Colorado high country, Dallas LeBeau sat down with his parents for dinner in their log cabin home. Valerie and Jason served grilled cheese and soup to their 21-year-old son, and as in the months before, the conversation quickly turned to the jump. Dallas announced that he was going to go for it the next day. His parents stopped eating and stared at him.
“Have you done the math?” Valerie asked him, even though she believed he probably didn’t know how to compute the required speed and lift needed to clear a 40-foot stretch of pavement. He planned to do it on pure instinct.
“Mom, if anything, I’m going to overshoot the landing,” Dallas said.
“Maybe you should wait,” his father said.
Dallas was a thrill-seeker who loved to put himself in danger, but he usually took measured risks. This didn’t feel like a measured risk, especially in April with the snowpack melting, although most people who knew Dallas didn’t doubt he could pull it off. When Valerie and Jason looked into his eyes that night, they saw a free spirit but also the reflection of what the ski industry had become for many young athletes like their son: an expensive, relentless chase to prove themselves in a social-media-driven world, where skiers often were emboldened to push their limits for the sake of views and clout.
Dallas had worked for years to make it to a top professional tour in skiing, only to stall in the standings last winter. He wasn’t getting younger. He had no....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
One ski came off.
I think you are right. I-40 goes through Albuquerque where I also used to live. I think it is US40. It does the "hazardous material bypass" over the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. This probably happened near the Loveland Ski Area, Just west of the continental divide.
Darwin wins a lot of the time.
"Missed it by that much."
My dad was a doctor. He called them “Murdercycles” and their riders “organ donors”. All 6 of us kids were strictly FORBIDDEN from EVER owning a motorcycle or a moped. Dad’s been gone for 30 years but none of us have ever owned one and none of my nieces or nephews have ever owned one either. He made that rule stick in the family for multiple generations now.
Nowadays you have to watch out for every other driver, regardless of what you are driving. Its absolutely nuts. All women and half the men are buried in their g-d phones.
“When Valerie and Jason looked into his eyes that night, they saw a free spirit…”
You see an adult who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Most survive this phase..
Yeah, I know, and I'm not trying to be mean. I'd never say it to their family because it hardly matters now. But I've gotten to the age where everyone I see pretty much reminds me of someone I've seen before. When they don't, it usually means either surgery or hormones.
You man, “cue Darwin”.
Looks like we have an update for the “agony of defeat,” clip.
Quote: “ Many of us here in our 50s - 80s are very thankful we made it out of our teens or 20s alive.”
I sort of made it out but am paying with artificial joints and various other orthopedic and spine surgeries, many before age 50.
Dear younger me,
You are an idiot. Just stop.
Love,
Older me.
Yes, welcome to the generation of graphics over content.
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